BACCANALI. — Name of a cult celebrated in Rome (Livy, XXXIX, 8 ff.), in luco Similae (Livy XXXIX, 12, 4; cf. CIL, VI, 9897; Schol. ad Juv., 2, 3), on the slopes of the Aventine (Ovid, Fasti, VI, 518), or in other parts of Italy, especially in the south (cf. CIL, I, 196 = CIL, X, 104; Livy, XXXIX, 41; XL, 19, 9), at the beginning of the second century B.C.
The divinity at the center of the celebrations was Bacchus (Dionysus; [v.]). But not in the form, known to the Latins from the most ancient times, of Liber pater, god, together with Libera, of fertility, who, from the beginning of the Republic, had formed, together with Libera and Ceres, a triad analogous to the Greek one of Demeter, Dionysus, and Kore, but
in the form that had found its establishment in the mystery cults (v. DIONISO, MISTERI di). This type of religiosity came from southern Italy; originally the cult was reserved for women (Livy, XXXIX, 13, 8), but later, through a Campanian priestess, men too had been introduced into II. (Elsewhere [XXXIX, 8, 3] Livy speaks of a « graecus ignobilis » who brought the b. from southern Italy to Rome through Etruria.) The festivals were secret; probably the killing of the child Dionysus by the Titans was represented there, along with a ritual death (« ita ut ne corpora quidem interdum ad sepulturam exstarent ») and a kind of mystical abduction among the gods (« raptos a dia homines dici »: Livy, XXXIX, 13, 13).
In essence, this was a cult of an Oriental type, centered on the figure of Dionysus, a cult that had achieved great importance at the court of Ptolemy Philopator in Egypt, mystical, orgiastic, and esoteric in character, and to which, perhaps, the philosophical-religious speculations of the Pythagoreans were not unrelated. In Rome the b., which became known as a result of an informant’s disclosure prompted by private disputes, were severely dealt with by the senate — always hostile to every form of « externa religio » — which, through the consul Postumius Albinus, turned the matter into a veritable political affair, ending in bloody repression following the well-known « senatus consultum » of 186. Although it did not amount to an outright prohibition, this regulated and considerably restricted the celebrations of the b. (the text of the « senatus consultum » — preserved in CIL, VI, 9897 — was found « in agro Teurano », in Calabria).
The singular historical importance of the episode of the b. lies in the fact that, as far as is known, the event represents the first case on Italian soil of a collision between political and religious power (the investigations into the b. were conducted by the consul and not by the priestly college).
To justify the sanctions, Livy’s account is filled with scandalous details and accusations of immorality, the same accusations that would later be brought against the Christians.
After the persecution of 186, one must reach the middle of the first century B.C. to find any mention of the b. (Serv. ad Verg., Ecl., 5, 29: « Caesarem constat primum sacra Liberi patris transtulisse Romam »). Caesar, who in all likelihood had learned of the Dionysiac cults in Alexandria in Egypt, reintroduced them into Rome. After him, as the admission of foreign religious forms and religious syncretism advanced during the Empire, these cults continued to exist.
BIBLI: G. WISSOWA, Bacchanal, in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclop., II, col. 2721 ff.; F. Cumont, Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, 4e ed., Paris 1929, pp. 46, 48, 196 ff.; E. Frenkel, Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus, in Hermes, 67 (1932), pp. 309–96; W. Krause, Zum Aufbau der Bacchanal-Inschrift, in Hermes, 71 (1936), pp. 214–20; F. Altheim, A History of Roman Religion, expanded edition translated by H. Mattingly, London 1938, pp. 239 ff., 310 ff., 314, 316, 325, 447 ff.; G. Méautis, Les aspects religieux de l'affaire des Bacchanales, in Revue des études anciennes, 42 (1940), pp. 476–85; Y. Béquinon, Observations sur l'affaire des Bacchanales, in Revue archéologique, 6e serie, 17 (1941), pp. 184–98; A. Grenier, Les religions étrusque et romaine, Paris 1948, pp. 145 ff., 156. Mario Camozzini